Monday, December 21, 2009

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Ten Brilliant Nights, Nine Final Papers, Eight World Juniors, Seven Aching Bodies, Six Fucking Douchebags, Five ... Straight ... Road ... Wins ........ Four Pints of Beer, Three Frenchmen, Two Sausages and Lubomir Visnovsky

Forty two today and took the day off to relax a little, just some me time, so of course I started the day off with a jack and a nap. Quality.

The real celebration was Saturday night. It was fairly low key. Forty two is no sort of milestone, certainly not one to drag folks away from their Christmas rounds for, so we met up with a couple who I have been very good friends with for as long as they have been together, somewhere around twenty years. They're great fun and so the plan was to meet them and my wife at a midtown pub after Capsule took the ice at seven.

Capsule has been trundling a long, we've had a couple of injuries and a few key guys have missed a lot of games because of other commitments, so while we aren't burning up the league I think we might be in a position to do some damage this year. Saturday night was typical, a game against a quality opponent, we were missing three of our four regular Dmen as well as one of our top two centres and so we cobbled together a defence corps and I was pressed into service up the middle. I used to play a lot of centre but the legs and lungs are shot so it was over to the wing for me until this summer where I played a lot of centre and did so pretty well and so now this winter I'm the emergency option. Two weeks ago I centred a grind line and we scored three and ended up plus two on an Olympic sized rink so I guess the lungs are okay now. Its all veteran guile now and I seem to be doing alright on that count.

Saturday night we put together another grind line, three of us muckers, and loaded up the other line for bear. It was a fine game, they had a quick youngster who scored two, including the winner with just over a minute left, but it was one of those where anyone could have won it, we gave a good account of ourselves. The score was the only blemish on the night.

For me it was one of my best games for I scored both of our goals, our first on a two on one after the winger did the classic chip past the pinching Dman. I picked up the puck and up my off wing and into the zone and snapped a shot past the defenceman and we were on the board. They answered with two but it wasn't on our watch as while our line was on the ice they hadn't a scoring chance. And on top of that I lost maybe one draw all night. Which is a sure sign that you are reading a post written by someone who has sold his soul to Satan. ;) With about seven minutes left we kept it in on a hard forecheck and caught them trying to jail break, I took a pass at the hashmarks, turned and swept it in. Two more goals, giving me five on the season in eleven games. A career year at forty two. ;)

I showered and got dropped off and headed down to the pub, a beautiful little place. We sat in a booth and midway through our night another couple dropped by for a quick drink, again two of my best friends, I've known them for nearly twenty five years now (and when you start throwing phrases like that around then you know you're getting up there) and we talked into the night, laughter and wonderful memories and lively conversation, the finest of nights, four pints for me and a round of whiskies bought by the first couple to depart, and so home, warm and boozy on the subway, a night to remember behind me although truth be told it got far better still once I got home. ;) The best of times.

8 comments:

happy Bday hope the Blues will cough up 2 points to the Oilers as a gift to u.i watched St nite game to see how it would go. Then I was feeling good after 2 as they were competing but still was waiting for the other shoe to drop.OV is the shit. But that was good call by him to make the Oilers 2 men down. That went off Green's stick. The quick whistle for the Oilers on the PP. If they blew it like that OV's 2nd goal would not been scored. Just whack away G8T 8 bah.The NHL refs are now looking more WWE everyday. It ain't just Oilers games there are lot of bad calls this year it is a joke.And that Doctor picking on Cherry. I don't think Don ever says go head hunting. So to say Don is why the headshots are happening is like saying Henry Ford is responsible for all Auto accidents in NA.

Happy Birthday Pat, 'tis a glorious day in the northern reaches of Alberta as well seeing as I'm celebrating 26 big ones.

I'm confused about the game tonight if only because my prediction relies solely on my hockey pool. Mason has been playing like crap (or likely the team in front of him is not helping. Just 1 win last week and an .880%.) but Backes is finally beginning to show some signs of life, he was so down and out Oct-Nov that he nearly slid off my bench.

Prediction 3-1 Oil because it's my g.d. birthday and this team has been testing my patience for several years. They owe me, nay, US.

Will be cheering for the Oilers tonight, as I do every night, but its probably best for this club if they go scorched earth next summer from the top down. Tambellini got stuck with a bad situation but you have to get yourself out of that and by moving out two more NHL players without replacements and by making the capp situation worse by bringing in Khabibulin he is not blameless at all. I think he may be out of his league.

If you have a cap mess then you had better be proactive and he was not and now we have another shit team trading water. Goaltending was never an issue with Roli and now its another hole that needs filling and that's on him.

Oiler fans deserve better than this mess and I certainly have little faith that he is the guy to get us out of it.